


A Thousand Years

by ixieko



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X
Genre: Canonical Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3240887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixieko/pseuds/ixieko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, their world was called Spira; a world caught in the spiral of death, doomed to this miserable fate by its own children. A thousand years has passed since the Summoner defeated Sin, and the world lives in peace and harmony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Years

**Author's Note:**

> There is a connection between the worlds of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X. This is my interpretation of this connection.

The clearing is covered in tall green grass. When they come closer, the boy sees that the grass is growing in intersected lines, forming large squares. Between the lines, the ground is level, covered in thick, green, soft moss. The trees around cast deep shadows across the clearing; the setting sun paints the clouds that roam above in gentle shades of rose.

"What is this place?" The boy asks, looking around. He is probably nine or ten years old; thin and tanned, with sun-bleached blond hair and bright green eyes, he is clothed in brown, mid-thigh length tunic. His feet are bare.  
His mother answers in low, melodic voice, "Once upon a time, when our ancestors were using simpler technologies, it used to be a launch pad for spaceships."  
"A launch pad?"  
"From here, they began their travels into the space."  
He raises his head, looks at the sky. The stars are not visible yet, but he knows they are there.  
"Why can't we go there?"  
She explains that the technology was too harmful to the Planet. Their race long ago stopped using machines like that.

The boy listens, still gazing up at the darkening sky, imagining how he would travel among the stars in one of these steel ships his ancestors used to build long, long ago. The sun is setting, and the night is on its way.

Once upon a time, people were afraid of night. They hid behind the walls and turned on the artificial lights to keep the darkness outside. Once upon a time, they were disconnected from the world, lived in dissonance, struggled against nature and tried to mold it to their perceived needs, instead of accepting it and living in peace.  
Once upon a time, their world was called Spira; a world caught in the spiral of death, doomed to miserable fate by its own children.

The boy knows the legend, of course; it passes in generations, from parents to children, they study it at school, there is a number of memorials, dedicated to those who made their world _possible_.  
He knows the legend about a summoner who refused to accept her fate and released the Spirits from their prison, letting the Lifestream to flow freely. He knows the legend about a scientist who invented a way of communication with the Planet, allowing the humanity to live in peace with their world. He knows that once upon a time people could not talk to the Planet, that once upon a time they were genetically modified to be able to.

A thousand years has passed since, a thousand springs and a thousand autumns. The old cities are but a memory now, hidden under layers of soil, and forests grow where once tall houses were standing, and grass covers the places where old machines lay buried. Their new cities are more libraries than anything else; they do not live there. Their home is the whole world. Even their buildings are not built from steel, glass and concrete anymore. Instead, they grow them, asking the Planet for help - and receiving it.

They call themselves Cetra now, a race that is not afraid of night, the race that travels under sun and moon, helping the land to flourish.

There are those among them who are unhappy with the absence of the old technology, those who want to live under a roof, enclosed in brick boxes of cramped houses. No one is stopping them, though most do not understand the reason for such desires.

The boy and his mother walk forward, through an abandoned launch pad and a thicket surrounding it, to the open fields. The mountains loom ahead, peaks covered in snow, red where the last sunrays reach them.

The sky is dark now, and on the black canvas tiny dots of stars are shining. The boy looks at them, searching for the ones that are not flickering - the planets.

One of these dots is strangely large. He does not know which planet is it, and asks his mother.  
She looks at the sky, frowning. She does not know either.

They stop in the middle of the dark field. The gentle wind ruffles their hair and sends waves through tall grass; glowing green dots of fireflies are floating above the night flowers.

The unknown star is growing bigger. Its colour is red.  
The boy turns to the woman. "Could it be one of the spaceships?"  
She looks at the sky. In the dim light of the stars, her face is a mysterious mask of shadows. She begins to answer, but at this moment, the dot lurches down, towards the ground, towards them, leaving behind a trail of smoke. They cower, mother shielding the child with her body.

The space traveller crash-lands to the north of them; the ground shakes, and the two fall down, still clutching at each other.  
"They crashed!" The boy shouts, when the tremors cease. "We have to help them!"  
Over the northern mountains, a giant cloud of smoke and dust is raising into the night sky.

The mother activates one of her Materia, summoning a bird and asking it to help them. The bird agrees and lets them to climb on its back, spreads its wings and takes to the sky.

When they arrive at the crater left by explosion, the sky above is still clouded, and flakes of ash are falling down upon the torn ground.  
The boy jumps down from the bird's back and runs off before the woman can stop him. She follows a moment later.

The thing that fell from the sky lays in the center of the crater. It resembles a huge rock, not a spaceship, but the mother feels a presence there; someone must have survived the crash.  
The boy reaches the meteor first, and disappears, climbing inside it through one of the holes in its sides.  
The mother calls out to him, but he does not answer, and she hurries after him. Something happens inside the rock, she feels the spirit of her son calling for help, but by the time she is near enough he falls silent.  
She peeks inside, and stumbles back, her face contorted in grimace of fear and disgust. She takes another step back, but at the same time several rope-like purple tentacles shoot out of the hole and catch her. She tries to scream, to fight, but they change form, enfolding her like a cocoon and dragging her into the meteor.

...

At the dawn, when several other Cetra arrive at the crash site, they are met by the woman and her son, tending to a wounded man - a space traveller, he says, from one of the colonies their ancestors founded in another star system.  
There is something suspicious about all three of them as well as about the rock itself, but the newcomers dismiss this feeling as a part of stress over the situation. They lead the survivor to the ridge of the crater, help him to climb onto one of the birds. The mother and the boy follow.

A while later, they depart, leaving the crash site deserted.

From inside the meteor, the purple, shapeless substance looks at the world of Gaia through the eyes of its puppets.

This world is already inhabited, but after a thousand years of travel through darkness and cold, it means nothing for the space traveller.  
What belongs, could be taken away. What exists, could be remade.  
It is only a law of nature, after all.  
Only the fittest will survive.


End file.
